Petition · past parliament

To accept 50/50 custody as the 'norm'

Rejected 19 signatures

What the petition asks

In some cases fathers are being denied access to their children. If not married, the mother does not have to name a father on the child's birth certificate. We have a current civil law process which allows and gives incentives to mother's who delay and outright deny access to children.
There are some cases where some parents are considered unsafe around children and this of course should be the exception. But research proves that parental alienation and using children as weapons is damaging their development. Parental alienation should be considered as child abuse. Children can only be used as a weapon whilst our civil law allows it to happen. If both parents have equal rights and shared custody then the court process would rarely be required, only in cases of enforcement.

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Timeline

1 Oct 2019 Petition opened for signatures
4 Oct 2019 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 19
Status Rejected
Rejected 4 Oct 2019

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.